Fireworks
by Elender Rambo
Summary: Will there be a Fourth of July celebration aboard Destiny? This slice-of-life story, with a dash of science, takes place between SGU 2x18 Epilogue and SGU 2x19 Blockade, as Destiny is preparing to leave the Novan expedition planet after dropping off the colonists from SGU 2x17 Common descent. It is a prequel to my SGU 3x01 Eli's plan.
1. Fireworks part 1

**Fireworks**

"Bella! Why are you hiding here?"

"Oh, hey, Lisa." Bella was slumped in a chair at the rear of the observation deck, in shadows. "I'm not. Not really. I'm . . . just thinkin'. Daydreaming. Indulging in a good mope."

Lisa laughed and pulled over a chair. "That's a good one." Then she took a closer look at her friend. Bella _was _downcast, and her Southern accent was emerging. She usually only did that when she was stressed."What are you thinking? Why the mope? Why now? You're one of the few people here who chose this mission. Because of you we have tomatoes, and for that I am personally very grateful."

Bella sighed. "What I'm thinking is, 'woe is me.' Everyone keeps harvesting the tomatoes before they're ripe. Then they moan that they taste chalky."

She had dropped an end _g_ and stretched _moan_ into three syllables. "What's really wrong, Bella?"

"I'm homesick. The last thing I expected. You know I went through the stones this morning, right?

"Yeah," Lisa said. "Yeah, I did. What happened?"

"Tomorrow is the Fourth of July."

"Oh," said Lisa. "I completely forgot. It's so easy to lose track of the calendar out here."

"I'm getting to that," Bella said grimly. "Hush up a minute."

Lisa gave Bella her full attention.

"Corporal Barnes had her turn at the stones yesterday. She knew I was looking forward to the family Fourth of July party and she told me she'd call my cousin and let her know I'd be there. She memorized the number."

"Wait. Your cousin's cleared?"

"Yep. But Barnes was excited about seeing her brother. Something about a pyrotechnics show they'd promised to coordinate for a wedding? She forgot to call from SGC and when she remembered, she just borrowed a phone from a wedding guest. She told my cousin I was coming today. Fraser was excited. The whole extended family would be there—"

"How many people in your family are cleared?"

"A few." Bella gave her a look that said _stop asking questions_. "What's _important_, Lisa, is that when I used the stones this morning I was a day late instead of a day early. It was July fifth on Earth."

"_WHAT_?"

"You heard what I said."

"So . . . let me get this straight," Lisa calculated. "Barnes went about . . . six o'clock?"

Bella nodded. "Eighteen hundred."

"And she was gone for sixteen hours?"

"Sixteen hours here, yes. Forty-eight hours on Earth. She got back here at ten hundred hours, three hours after I left."

Lisa got to the main point. "Why is it that you're an agronomist and I'm an electrical engineer, and we're the first ones to notice that eight hours pass on the ship for every day that passes on earth?"

"I doubt we are. We're just the first ones to say it out loud. You took physics, right?" Lisa nodded. "Do you remember the relativity of simultaneity? Time dilation?"

"Yes," said Lisa. "It means we're screwed."

"Big time," agreed Bella.

"Why didn't Volker tell us? Or Eli or Rush? You can't tell me they didn't know."

"Lisa, they're deliberately keeping it from us. It's a pact. Remember when Rush said that we'd come across a naquadria planet in about a year? For morale."

"If it hadn't been for your Fourth of July party, which hinges on a particular date . . . Why'd you come home early? Because you noticed that July fourth was missing, whereabouts unknown?"

"Yes. They pulled me back to the SGC. They didn't tell me why, and I didn't ask. If Barnes had called Fraser from the base, I bet we wouldn't know now."

"Maybe they really didn't know until July fourth went missing for you. Time on _Destiny_ and time on Earth feel the same no matter where you are. You wouldn't notice a difference."

"We are so screwed," Bella said again. "If we can't go home soon, my ten-year-old cousin Perry is going to be older than me in ten years."

"My baby brother will die of old age before I get my first grey hair."

"Do we confront them?"

"Not yet," Bella said. "Not until we've calmed down and thought this through."

"Public, you think?" Lisa asked. "What about Ron? I'm sleeping with him. Maybe I talk in my sleep."

"We need to think. Ron is unswervingly loyal to Colonel Young. Do you think Young knows?"

"He does if Eli does, and how can Eli _not_ know?"

Behind them, they heard a throat being cleared. In unison, they turned their heads. Lisa glanced quickly at Bella and a silent decision was made.

They would stonewall. For the moment.

"Dr Park, Dr Cone," the young airman intoned, "Colonel Young wants to see everyone in the gate room."

How much had he heard?

"Shit," said Dr Cone.

"Hits fan," agreed Dr Park.

.

* * *

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**Notes**

This story takes place between _SGU_ 2x18 "Epilogue" and _SGU_ 2x19 "Blockade," as _Destiny_ is preparing to leave the Novan expedition planet after dropping off the colonists from _SGU_ 2x17 "Common descent." It is a prequel to my first story "Eli's plan." It is meant to stand on its own as a short story and when I complete it, I'll probably combine all chapters into one.

Chapter 7 of "Eli's plan" is under construction.


	2. Fireworks part 2

Lisa and Bella were among the last few stragglers to arrive in the gate room. They had walked there with the airman who'd delivered the message and while he'd responded when spoken to and hadn't seemed spooked, he hadn't been particularly relaxed, either. When they'd arrived at the gate room, he'd walked away from them with a polite "ma'am, ma'am" to join a group of friends. They were slightly reassured that he didn't approach Lieutenant James, his commanding officer.

"Did he hear?" Lisa mouthed to Bella as soon he was out of range.

"I don't know," Bella hissed back. "He knows I used to be an air force officer."

Colonel Young and Camile Wray had finished mounting the steps to the landing opposite the gate, and Lieutenant Scott was calling for quiet.

"EVERYBODY LISTEN UP!"

"Thank you, Mr Scott," Colonel Young said, then addressed the assembled crew of the _Destiny_. "This is a status update. We have finished loading the supplies that the Tenfurans have so generously provided. There will be a short delay before new foods appear in the mess hall, so that Dr Cone can finish her analysis. We will be leaving Tenfura as soon as the colonists have downloaded a copy of the Tenaran archives. We estimate that will be in forty-eight hours."

"Why the delay?" someone shouted.

"Please," said Camile Wray, raising her voice over the escalating hubbub, "hold your questions." She waited while the noise subsided, then continued. "The colonists we brought here have been provided with land for their own settlement and are well on their way to being assimilated. With Colonel Young's permission, Eli has given them the extra set of communication stones. We will be able to communicate with them after we leave their star system."

"I'd like to respond to the question about the delay now," said Young, who suspected that the room would explode after Camile's next announcement. "Dr Rush? Eli?"

Eli looked at Rush, who gestured that he should answer. "It would have taken almost forty hours to upload the Tenaran archives when we were on Novus. It's a whole _lot_ of data, even compressed. We got a third of it, which is still a lot of data. The Tenfurans don't have one system that can hold all of it and we don't have any freestanding storage we can give them. They're having to find individual units that can hold part of it for now, to be networked together later. That's taken some time to arrange. The archives will take up more than half of the planet's computers. Then we have to divide the archives into discrete units before we can compress them—"

Young apparently sensed that Eli was about to launch into a long, technical explanation and cut him off. "Thank you, Eli. Camile?"

"Thank you, Colonel Young," Camile began. "The Tenfurans are throwing us a goodbye party. They already had a market fair planned and they're moving it forward a few days." She gestured to tamp down the murmur running through the crowd. "You've each been issued with credit so you'll have money to spend. You can bring back souvenirs. Someone told them tomorrow is Fourth of July on Earth. There will be fireworks."

Everyone started talking and the Americans in the crowd all clapped. "Will there be beer?" someone shouted out.

"Yes," Camile shouted back, but no one heard her. Lieutenant Scott whistled and the room quietened somewhat.

"There will be a shuttle run to the planet every four hours," said Colonel Young. "Everyone will have to stand three four-hour shifts on _Destiny._ Those shifts have been assigned along with your initial shuttle run. Take your radios with you. If you want to switch _Destiny_ shifts with someone else, you'll need approval from the officer of the day. For the next twelve hours that's Lieutenant James. Bring up 'party' on any terminal to see your own schedule and to sign up for shuttle runs. First shuttle leaves as soon as everyone assigned to it assembles in shuttle bay one. That is all."

The noise level rose again as Camile and Young left the dias. By the time they reached the gate room deck, a general exodus had started. Everyone was anxious to reach a terminal to check their shuttle schedule and shift assignments.

"Dr Park! Dr Cone! Wait . . ." Camile shouted over the din, as she forced her way through the dispersing crowd toward them. "Come with me to my office," she said, then noticed their wary looks. Neither of them had said a word. "It's nothing bad, I promise. I need your help with something."

"Will this take long?" Bella asked, as they started walking together. Camile's office wasn't far—a few doors down the corridor that ran from the gate room to the command interface room. "I really need some R&R, and I'm rarin' to get to that schedule." She didn't know Camile as well as Lisa did, and Lisa had remained silent. Camile seemed happy and excited, and that was reassuring.

"I put you both on the first _Destiny_ shift. I hope you don't mind. It'll get it out of the way and give you more time on the planet once you get there," Camile explained.

"OK. What about Ron?" Lisa asked. This party could be their first real date.

"He's on the first shift too. Doing shuttle runs with Lieutenant Scott," Camile added as they entered her office and she led them to her console. She pulled up the map she'd been compiling of _Destiny_ on one screen and some kino footage on another. "This is from a routine exploration of a corridor eight decks below and forward of the gate room. It was taken about two weeks back. I watched it yesterday when I was working on the map. Tell me what you see."

They peered closely as a door slid open and the kino entered a room. Its spotlight activated in reaction to the darkness, with mixed results. As it rotated 360º in the center of the room, it lit objects with an intense brightness that quickly passed into deep shadow. It was also set for a narrow field of vision, and only showed the level of room from about five to seven feet off the floor, like the icing between layers of a cake. It caught the crew members in ATV suits who were standing just inside the door, but it was impossible to tell who they were.

"Who took this footage?" Bella asked, as she restarted it at one-eighth speed. "Was this their first mapping mission? Weren't they trained on the kino?"

"Two airmen. Brody was with them until he was called back to the bridge. This might have been their second mission in ATV suits. After Brody turned over the kino control and left them alone in the bowels of the ship, they got a little spooked and rushed through the remainder of the corridor. There!" Camile froze the image. "What do you see?"

"Bedding," said Lisa. "Shelves of it. It's a linen closet."

"Hmmm . . ." Bella murmured as she enlarged the image of some Ancient writing half in shadow. "It's the ship's laundry room. Is there any footage of nearby rooms?"

"Just one more room." Camile fast-forwarded the kino recording then played back a section at one-eighth speed. "Here."

This time the rotation showed shelves containing what looked to be bolts of fabric and then Bella paused the image. "That," she said, "is a loom. Do you know what this means?"

"I don't know about the two of you," said Camile, "but I don't want to go to a party wearing the same clothes I've worn for almost eight months straight."

"Indeed," said Bella, who had been on SG-15 for two years and knew Teal'c. "I'm going to my room to fetch my pack."

"Good idea," said Camile. "I'll get mine, too."

"And I'll check out the logistics of getting there and back safely," said Lisa, turning to Camile's console. "Meet me in ATV storage in ten minutes."

Bella lingered until Camile had left the room. "She said eight months."

"It doesn't mean she knows. Time feels normal, wherever you are," said Lisa without looking up from the console. "Go, Bella! Ten minutes. And pick up a kino and controller, too."

.

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**Notes**

Since this story takes place before _SGU_ 2x19 "Blockade," Dr Park still has her eyesight and Camile Wray doesn't yet have the "new" outfit Colonel Young scavenged from an abandoned dry cleaners.


	3. Fireworks part 3

"I can't turn on the life support," Lisa said, handing them each an ATV helmet. "The filters need to be prepped first, and we don't have time. But we don't have to wear the whole suit. We won't be exposed to space." She paused while she handed them what at first they took to be huge flasks with a suction tube in a net carrying bag, like water on a hike. "Though it will be cool. It's about fourteen degrees in there."

"Fourteen degrees!" sputtered Camile.

"Centigrade," Bella said with a grin. "Fifty-eight degrees Farenheit."

"Oh," said Camile. "I forgot for a moment that you're Canadian, Lisa."

"The chill is another reason not to linger, but we should be all right. We're all wearing long sleeves. This is about an hour's worth of oxygen. That should be plenty to get us there and back."

Camile started to put her helmet on, but Lisa stopped her. "Let me send the kino ahead and monitor the air quality. No need to waste air."

"Or risk hair," Bella quipped. "Why do we have to wear the helmets, anyway? Can't we just use respirators, like deep sea divers?"

"If we want to talk to each other easily, we have to wear the helmets. They house the built-in communication system on the channel reserved for the ATV suits." Lisa replied, her eyes on the kino readout. "Plus you'll need to keep your eyes hydrated. The atmosphere down there is dry as well as cool. There must be simpler masks to go with these lightweight air tanks, but I haven't been able to locate them and I haven't had time to devise a substitute."

"What about these tanks?" Camile asked.

"They're a titanium alloy, but I haven't identified the other metal. Those we can put on. . . . They weigh almost nothing and mold to your back along the spine. What route did they take, Camile?"

Camile tapped on Park's tablet, which was displaying the map. "Down three decks in this elevator outside the gate room. Forward to here—that corridor was cleared two months ago—then three more decks down from there. That was new territory, and they started exploring it until they got to . . . here. The next door was sealed off, so they went down one deck in this elevator and started forward. Got to here, found another sealed section, and went down to the next deck, which is where we're going. They'd only examined one room when Brody was called away."

"It looks to me like they zigzagged more than we need to. If we go down five decks from the gate room, that will put us on the first deck that extends into the forward section of the ship. I know that deck's been cleared to here," Lisa scrolled the page, "and that's forward of where we're going. So if we take this elevator three decks down, we'll be two corridors away. If they're not blocked, that's a two-minute walk. Let's go launch the kinos from the gate room elevator."

"Let's go down a deck first," Bella suggested. "I'd rather not run into anyone who might see the helmet and want an explanation. I doubt the gate room has cleared out yet."

"Good thinking, Dr Cone," said Camile as they all started walking.

"Oh, we're all civilians here, and now we're co-conspirators. Call me Bella, Camile."

Camile laughed. "Weren't you in the air force? Why didn't Colonel Young reinstate you, like TJ? I asked him once and he blew me off."

"Blew you off how?"

"He changed the subject."

"Ah," said Bella. "He does threaten me with it from time to time, but I doubt he'd follow through. I finished the obligatory service for my ROTC scholarship and transferred into the reserve six years ago as a captain while I was on the short list for promotion to major. I'd outrank everyone on the ship but Young himself and my military skills are too rusty for that. I don't have to be on active duty to function as _Destiny_'s quartermaster. Agreeing to that was our compromise."

"He wouldn't want Bella restricting her job to quartermaster, either," put in Lisa, "when it was designed to be so much more."

"We were lucky that you were already selected for the ninth-chevron team. And that many of your materials were already crated," Camile said.

"And that I was in my office when the alarm sounded, with my laptop already in my go pack. I realized we were evacuating through the gate and grabbed as much as I could carry." Bella sighed. "I wish I'd had a change or two of clothes in my office, but I'd probably have left them behind. I thought we were going home. Grabbed Aunt Emily's cashmere shawl, though. So I have that. I almost didn't take the flats I'd planted, but I didn't want to reorder the seeds."

"What didn't make it?" Camile asked.

"From the packed crates near the gate? Mostly books and tools. Culinary references. Recipes. Metallurgical tests and metal-working supplies. Ditto woodworking and carpentry tools. Animal husbandry references. Tailoring and shoemaking tools. My loom. Oh! My knitting materials _did_ eventually turn up, and they included a small sewing kit. And a spindle."

"Turned up when?" Lisa asked.

"Couple of weeks ago. Someone looking for food or weapons had opened the crate and shoved it aside. It ended up in storage with assorted odds and ends, to be gone through later. Aren't we here? Isn't this the right elevator?"

"Yep," said Camile. "Gate room one deck up."

"Camile, why don't I launch my kino to follow our proposed path," Lisa opened the elevator door and programmed the path into the kino. "If your kino then follows the original path, we can compare them." She studied the readout on the controller.

"Sounds like a plan." They waited for the elevator to discharge the first kino four decks down and return. "So. Bella." The tone of Camile's voice signaled a studied query. "What do you think of Colonel Telford? He would have been the commander of the mission if it had gone as planned."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. I read his file before I helped him select the members of the nine-chevron team. I know you worked with him on SG-15." The door snicked open and Camile sent her kino two decks down. "So yes. Seriously."

"This won't go further than the three of us, right?" Bella didn't continue until both Camile and Lisa had nodded. "He commanded SG-15 for about three months, my third year at Stargate Command. I was still in the air force, so that made him my commanding officer. I think he's a single-minded, stubborn, jealousy prone, ambitious _ass_. He's another reason I resisted the proposed reinstatement of my commission. I'm not convinced that his conversion to the dark side was entirely involuntary, or that Colonel Young's intervention was entirely successful. Telford's trying to prove himself now with grand gestures by promoting our failure. He doesn't understand the science and has set himself up in opposition to Dr Rush, to our detriment. Just to prove that he would have done a better job than Colonel Young, who arrived here by serendipity." She stopped when the elevator door opened.

"Well, Bella, let it all out, why don't you?" Lisa said.

"I chose this mission despite Telford. I believe in it. I wasn't expecting to return to Earth. It's not enough to find out where the ninth chevron would take us. We have to know _why_ it was so important to the Ancients that they would devote the resources of a generation to launch the ships. Why they called the flagship _Destiny_."

Camile didn't notice Lisa's surprised expression at hearing this speech.

"You sound like Dr Rush, who has a lead. I'd really like to know what happened between Rush and Telford on the other _Destiny_," Camile said as she examined the controller readout. "It's clear two decks down." She sent her kino along the corridor to the second elevator.

"Mine, too," Lisa said. "Let's go down two decks."

"Why did you call _Destiny_ a flagship?" Camile asked Bella.

They stepped onto the elevator, empty packs dangling from one arm, ATV helmets from the other. "I figure the seed ships are participants in the mission. . . . Perhaps he had special instructions. I wonder if he knew . . ." Bella mused.

Lisa looked at Bella sharply and Camile noticed. "Knew what?"

"What would happen, of course. In the star." Bella said, feigning innocence while not looking at Lisa. The door opened.

Camile let the subject drop, but the other two women knew it would come up later. Perhaps Camile wouldn't sort out Bella's pronouns. As they trooped in silence down the corridor, Lisa and Camile sent their respective kinos on the next leg. The data from Camile's came back first. "No air," she said. "But otherwise clear." She sent it on.

They reached the next elevator. Lisa was still concentrating on her controller. "There's air at the elevator entrance . . . but not after the first sealed intersection. So we'll need to put on the helmets before we open the penultimate door. Otherwise clear and seventeen degrees." She looked up at Camile. "Sixty-three Farenheit."

They stepped in. As the door opened, lights began going on down the corridor, pointing them in the direction the kino had gone. They stepped out.

"Did you do that, Lisa?" Bella asked.

"Not specifically. I did turn on the power in our destination corridor. I didn't turn on the power en route." She hit her forehead with the heel of her hand. "We should have the brought extra tanks of air. It didn't occur to me because we only have five."

"The other kino is paused at the aft entrance to the corridor. It hasn't turned on any lights, so the lights must be sensing us."

"And my kino is paused at the forward end of the corridor. We did a little backtracking coming in. Also no lights." Lisa stopped. "One more corridor, and then we arrive. Helmets on now. Visors up, so we can talk." She waited until the other two had their helmets on, then picked up Camile's hose. "You each need to watch as I connect the other person's tank. One of you will need to connect mine and the other will need to check it. Ready Bella? Watch."

Lisa hooked up Camile, then Camile watched her hook up Bella. Camile hooked up Lisa. "Here we go. Visors down. The speakers and mikes will engage automatically. No one else will be able to hear us unless you press the button on the side." As one, they lowered their respective visors.

"Camile? Bella? Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Camile said.

"Yep. And I can breathe. Here goes," Bella said as she engaged the door.

It didn't open.

Lisa reached past her and punched in an override code. "Safety feature. You need to tell it you're wearing a suit." She grinned when Bella stuck out her tongue. The door opened and the lights in the corridor went on one by one, leading to the next door. They walked there quickly and opened it. The kino they'd followed was just inside; again the lights went on. There was a curve to the corridor and they couldn't see the other kino. They set each kino to check out the rooms on its right, working down the hall on opposite sides, which would make them change places in the process.

Bella watched the controller with Lisa. The first room was apparently for storage, but the cabinets and bins were all closed and it was impossible to tell what they held. There were benches in front of them. At least they looked like benches—they were too low to be worktables. The kino went through an internal door into the adjoining room.

"Oh my god," said Bella.

"Wow. Wow wow wow," said Lisa.

Camile dropped the arm holding the other kino's controller to her side and rushed over to see what discovery had so excited them.

"Pay dirt," she breathed. In her normal voice Camile said, "How long would it take to get life support up in here? We have three and a quarter hours before our shuttle."

.

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**Notes **

I would like Corporal Barnes to have a given name. Any suggestions? I'm thinking "Lee Ann," as a nod to the actress who played her, or "Roberta." Please vote:  
A. Lee Ann  
B. Leigh Ann  
C. Roberta  
D. Bobbie  
E. _.

According to canon, Lisa Park has a doctorate and was a scientist stationed on Icarus. Her field of study and her nationality were not revealed. Both parents are living and she has two brothers. She's a vegetarian. She was a natural choice in _SGU_ 1x1–3 "Air" to work on the air filters, she sits command shifts on the bridge, she's the ship's expert on the ATV suits, and she's committed to the success of the garden. She was primarily responsible for restoring the third suit to working order. Because of that, I chose to make her an electrical engineer; I also chose to make her older than at least one of her brothers. The actress who portrayed her is Canadian and I've decided that she shall be too.


End file.
